Are Australia’s Jews rich and powerful; pulling the strings of government and business to favour their interests? In this episode, Dash presents an anxious Tami with some statistical evidence as they attempt to unpack the first part of this conspiracy that's been gaining traction online post-October 7. Plus, Australia’s first Jewish postie and a GIVEAWAY!
TJI articles discussed in this episode:
Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
(You can also email voice memos here).
Subscribe to The Jewish Independent's bi-weekly newsletter:
jewishindependent.com.au
Tami and Dash on Instagram: tami_sussman_writer_celebrant and dashiel_and_pascoe
X: TJI_au
YouTube: thejewishindependentAU
Facebook: TheJewishIndependentAU
Instagram: thejewishindependent
Are Australia’s Jews rich and powerful; pulling the strings of government and business to favour their interests? In this episode, Dash presents an anxious Tami with some statistical evidence as they attempt to unpack the first part of this conspiracy that's been gaining traction online post-October 7. Plus, Australia’s first Jewish postie and a GIVEAWAY!
TJI articles discussed in this episode:
Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
(You can also email voice memos here).
Subscribe to The Jewish Independent's bi-weekly newsletter:
jewishindependent.com.au
Tami and Dash on Instagram: tami_sussman_writer_celebrant and dashiel_and_pascoe
X: TJI_au
YouTube: thejewishindependentAU
Facebook: TheJewishIndependentAU
Instagram: thejewishindependent
I think I owe you an apology because, well, like I consider us friends now and I'm aware that you took part in a marathon because you got papped, I've seen the picture, but I didn't ask you how you went, whether you were happy with it. Did you beat a PB? Because friends are supposed to do that.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily. I don't think any of my friends have asked about the half marathon, but it was Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm now your best friend. That's cool. Okay, I can see from this shot that you're wearing some cute little shorts.
Speaker 2:Believe it or not, I can actually go shorter.
Speaker 1:And your preferred brand of marathon half marathon shorts would be.
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 1:Asics, asics, there we go. I got it the potential sponsor of our show, asics, supporting everyone's favorite co-host, dash Lawrence, in his half marathon. And because I'm your best friend, now I should probably also check in just to make sure that you're okay, because you know there's a lot of commentary in the media around people having like quarter midlife crises and so they start to train for marathons and half marathons. So anything you want to talk to me about.
Speaker 2:Look, just the.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, okay, bestie. Hmm besties.
Speaker 2:Well, let's do this, let's get on with the show.
Speaker 1:Are you ashamed to admit that you're not across all of the issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? I'm Tammy Sussman and in this podcast series I ask the Jewish Independence Executive Director, dash Lawrence, all those ignorant questions that I, and probably you, are too embarrassed to ask.
Speaker 2:I'm Dash Lawrence and I'm going to attempt to answer most of Tammy's questions in a time that takes you to scrape the conglomerated cheese off your dishes because your flatmates are useless.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't talk about your kids that way. Dash, but continue.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I might have to bring in an expert and sometimes I might have a few questions of my own.
Speaker 1:But together, Dash and I are going to try and cut through the week's chewiest and jewiest topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. A Shame to Admit. Thanks for joining us. It's great to have you with us for Episode 7 of Season 1 of A Shame to a Me. I'm Dash Lawrence from the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 1:And I'm not pregnant, just bloated. Tammy Sussman, excellent, you'd be amazed at how many people still ask Dash, we are recording on the 9th of May. Dash, we are recording on the 9th of may. On this day in 1944, russia recaptured crimea by taking sevastopol. I have no idea what any of that means. I just needed a segue so that you could dish the dirt on my russian ancestor, edward lukovsky, who I can now confirm was my first cousin. Four times removed, the family trees in.
Speaker 2:So by way of background context, if you're just joining us, we started the conversation all the way back in episode one about Tammy's family history, her roots, and the conversation a few episodes ago moved to the discovery as found by Tammy's friend, marina. Thank you, marina. In addition to Tammy being descended from a pickle empire, there was potentially a criminal element to Tammy's family story. The late side of the family, the Pickle Empire side of the family, were also previously known as Lakofskys, so at some stage there was a changing of the name. Marina uncovered a story about Edward Lakofsky selling a bicycle In 1911 in Broken Hill. I believe Edward Wachowski really piqued my interest. I wanted to see what else I could discover on the man and I also wanted to understand what the connection was between this Wachowski side of the family, the Lake side of the family, how he connected in with your great-great great grandfather, leon Lekoski.
Speaker 1:owner of Pilata Pickles in Marrickville.
Speaker 2:And pretty much the first discovery that I made when I went hunting was this quite striking bit of material, so I'm just sending it through to you. Can you please pull up WhatsApp and take a look at the first image that I have sent to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, good Lord, oh no. Photographs of prisoners to be discharged from jails during January 1921. Yep. Is Edward in there?
Speaker 2:Go to the bottom row and the middle column.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Edward Lakofsky, he's a bit of a babe. I know you're not supposed to say that about your cousins, distant cousins but he's not bad.
Speaker 2:He's a good-looking fellow for sure.
Speaker 1:So he did go to jail. What jail, what for?
Speaker 2:well, this was for a whole separate offense, so let's forget all about the the bicycle theft for a moment there's another image I've sent to you.
Speaker 1:This is a new story, so see if you can read that faint print for us okay, and we'll put the picture of hottie Edward Lukowski on Instagram as well, because I know people, some people are listening to this podcast just for this bit. They're not interested in like world politics or affairs, they just want to know about the pickle empire and the characters in it. Okay, this is a newspaper clipping. It says dishonest postal employee Edward Lakofsky, 24, a post office employee, pleaded guilty in the Court of General Sessions before something it's a bit blurry on Friday. The charge of having stolen one pound ten. What's that currency? Again Shillings, shillings One pound ten shillings the property.
Speaker 1:Shillings. Shillings One pound ten shillings. The property of the Commonwealth.
Speaker 2:The property of the Commonwealth at Hawthorne on or about.
Speaker 1:It says he'd extracted the money from postal articles.
Speaker 2:Yep. And he was in the last sentence.
Speaker 1:He was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
Speaker 2:Yep. Another article I found described it as six months of hard labour. So, Edward Wachowski, your cousin, fourth removed.
Speaker 1:Or my great, great great grandfather's first cousin.
Speaker 2:Was a postal worker working for Australian Post.
Speaker 1:So he was a postie. He was like the OG postie, yeah.
Speaker 2:He was the OG postie until he was caught stealing some money in the mail and sentenced to six months in jail. Oi, yeah, this was obviously his second running with the law. I'm not sure whether that contributed to the sentence, but that's why you've got Foddy Lukowski appearing alongside a bunch of other criminals when they're discharged from jail in 1921. And so look, obviously you didn't know much about this side of your family.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:But, I just wanted to share this with you, in case there were any illusions about where you descended from. Okay so tell me how do you feel learning about this.
Speaker 1:What I love the most about this is that you've brought this information to me to try and, like, shock me or rattle me, and yet, you know, the biggest thing I've taken from this is that Edward was hot and I'm like, oh cool, so I have a really hot, great, great, great, great great cousin. Yeah, just for anyone listening who's judging me about rating my distant cousin, I just want you to know what's that saying? Don't throw stones at people with glass houses or whatever People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what does that mean again?
Speaker 2:Effectively. Don't criticize people for something that you are also guilty of doing or being.
Speaker 1:That's what I was trying to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:People who are judging me for raiding a hot dead relative like just don't pretend that you've never done that when you've gone through your own family archives. Thank you so much for that Dash. That was really eye-opening in all the ways I did not expect. So we don't have any guests this week. It's just you and I busting a few myths about Jewish people in Australia and we're going to delve into some problematic cliches that I'm ashamed to admit I haven't attempted to debunk earlier. And one reason I haven't done this, as I attempted to express in episode one, is that when it comes to these taboo topics, it gets really overwhelming because so many of these negative narratives about Jews are really prejudiced, they're vile and it's really difficult to go there, and I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to being afraid of what I would find.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so since time immemorial, basically, jewish people have been accused of being rich and powerful, pulling the strings of government and business to favour their interests, using their money as a vehicle to buy power, to curry favour. And, tammy, it will come as no surprise to you, and probably to many of our listeners, that that line of conspiratorial thinking has really only elevated since october 7, even here in australia, which, historically speaking, has had, I would say, pretty low levels of anti-semitism so over the next couple of episodes, you and I wanted to address some of those anti-Semitic tropes that have been rehashed in recent months.
Speaker 2:Have a conversation about the twisted logic that sits behind those tropes. Look at some of the data if you like, some of the evidence, and this week we wanted to start with the question of money. Look, it will not take you long if you dive into Twitter and X and go into particular feeds before you'll just be hit by a deluge of anti-Semitic tweets, memes, and it's vile. The stuff I found probably doesn't even scratch the surface of what's out there, so one of the ones that jumped out at me immediately was this one by at lucky jenny.
Speaker 1:The zionist influence and pressure on decision making is beginning to surface. According to the last census, the jewish population in austral Australia is 1%. Go figure how money talks Pulley.
Speaker 2:Fred, be careful. There's a lot of Jewish money and influence in Australia.
Speaker 1:And at Dorish Frar. Australia was conquered by Jewish money. Politicians are elected by Jewish money with two angry faces.
Speaker 2:These are just a handful of the many number of tweets you'll find out there in the months after October 7th where people are pretty openly, without really any shame, rehashing very, very old, abiding tropes and anti-Semitic ideas about Jewish people and their use of money and their connection and their Jewish people and the way that they use money to influence, to buy power, to control australia, and it's something that has very likely just been sitting below the surface surface. But in the context of the post october 7 attacks and israel's war in gaza, there is really no kind of shame or, or, for some, people need to be hiding this stuff anymore. And you know what you'll frequently see not necessarily in the posts that we just read out, but what you'll frequently see is people, instead of using the word Jewish, they'll now say Zionist money and what that really means Jewish money, but there's a very vague attempt to try and not appear to be anti-Semitic. But for the rest of us, you can see pretty clearly through all of that.
Speaker 2:So I want to first ask you, Tammy, are you aware of the BRW Rich List?
Speaker 1:I'm ashamed to admit I'm not 100% certain what that acronym means.
Speaker 2:Well, it's an annual publication now known as the Financial Review Rich List, and it's a list of Australia's 200 wealthiest individuals and families, ranked by their personal net worth, published annually in the Australian Financial Review magazine.
Speaker 1:That's a bit gross. Why do they do that?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I can't tell you. I guess there's like an element of….
Speaker 1:Perviness.
Speaker 2:I guess so, but it is both, I think.
Speaker 2:think in some ways a source of pride for some people in the jewish community, and a source of astoundment for jewish people and non-jewish people that for the last few decades I don't quite know how far this goes back, but consistently you will find jew, jewish people in the top 10.
Speaker 2:So I think at their peak in 2018, five of the top seven positions in that list were Jewish. The numbers have changed a bit since then. Last year, I think, four out of the top 10 were Jewish Anthony Pratt, harry Trigubov, ivan Plasenberg and Frank Lowy and it's an extraordinary statistic because Australian Jews account for less than 1% of the Australian population Less than 1% 0.4% a small proportion of the population. And yet when you look at this annual rich list, you will consistently see that Jewish families have made it to the very top, and for all the conspiracy theorists out there, that's reason for great suspicion and reason for great envy and even more loathing For many other Australians. I'm sure it is a stunning reflection of the success of those people and their families as migrants to this country, in many cases who had very little and have gone on to accumulate a huge amount through usually very smart investments but also a lot of hard work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Originally I was uncomfortable to even include their names in this podcast. Yeah. But then I looked them up and I thought they're of an older generation, many of them are immigrants and, yeah, haven't had wealth handed to them on a plate. They have worked really, really hard.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, frank Lowy's. It's well known now, but he and his business partner started with very, very little money and have gone to build this global shopping centre empire. So I want to share that, to acknowledge that, like part of the Australian Jewish story, is a story of success in commerce and finance, and that there has been this wave of migrants that have come to this country with very little and some of them have gone on to create an enormous amount of wealth and to generate, to build and to contribute to the wider prosperity of Australia.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we have that rich list, so we know that at least four Jews in Australia are really, really wealthy. But what other data do we have beyond that counterintuitive, especially within the context of Australian tall poppy syndrome?
Speaker 2:rich list so we have the census results.
Speaker 2:You'll be aware if you live in this country that every five years, Australians are required to fill out a survey where they're asked a whole range of questions, including about their religion and including about their income and their employment status and so on.
Speaker 2:So the most recent census was in 2021.
Speaker 2:The Jewish community hasn't, as far as I'm aware, hasn't run the analysis on the 2021 results, but they did run the analysis on the 2016 results and there have been a couple of reports that have been produced, and one of the reports found that this is looking nationwide, that the median personal annual income for Jews in Australia in 2016 was $49,200. And that's compared to $34,400 for the rest of the Australian population. So it's a difference of about 43%. It is quite a substantial difference. And then, in terms of personal income, Jewish people were four times as likely as the rest of the Australian population to earn $156,000 per year or more. So about 12% of Australia's Jewish population have that personal income and that's compared to just 3% of the wider Australian population. So clearly there are people in the Australian Jewish community who are earning well and above the Australian average and they're more likely to be earning in that upper bracket and they also had fewer people that were in the lower end bracket as well. So I share this data to make me anxious.
Speaker 2:I'm not a sociologist and I'm certainly not someone that works with statistics.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say I'm not a sociopath, which is also a relief. But yeah, all those statistics and fractions were reminding me of high school as well, which?
Speaker 2:was just compounding the anxiety Are you?
Speaker 1:sharing that information with me because you don't want to gaslight me or you don't want to provide me with propaganda. You want me to just hear it like yes, the majority of Jews are earning good incomes.
Speaker 2:I think it's important and it's necessary to reflect on the fact that the Jewish population in Australia, on average, is earning more than the wider Australian population, and I don't think that that's anything to be ashamed of. I don't think that's anything to feel. I mean, you can respond to that in whichever way you like, but it is true to say that the community enjoys, I think, a greater level of. Let's see how I can frame this. Comfort yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we'll get to that question of comfort in a moment. But I say all of this with the caveat that there are and we'll talk about this in a moment there are people in the Jewish community that do not enjoy this level of comfort and do not enjoy the privileges of being on the BRW rich list, for whom you could not say they have a financial success story and, as is always the case, you can't generalize about a people. And even though this is a relatively small community, there is great diversity among the 100,000 of Australian Jewish people. Great diversity, financial diversity. So we'll talk about that in a moment. So another really important input into this conversation is the Gen 17 survey. Are you familiar with Gen 17?
Speaker 1:So what was that?
Speaker 2:So Gen 17, for you, tammy, and others who may not have heard of it, was a survey conducted by the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. It was one of the largest community surveys of its kind across the Jewish world. We're talking around close to about 10%, give or take, of the Australian Jewish population, perhaps a little bit more. So you know, that's a very, very good sample size of Australian Jewry and, as I said before, nothing compares to it across the Jewish world. I don't think so. In Gen 17, this survey went out you may even have completed it and forgotten about it, tammy, but asked Australian Jews a whole range of questions from which Jewish denomination do they identify with? Do they identify as Zionist or not, you know? What Jewish traditions and practices do they keep? How do they relate to Israel, and so on.
Speaker 2:There's many valuable aspects of Gen 17, but what it gives for those of us who have an interest in looking at the Jewish community from a macro view is it asks questions that the census don't ask, and one of the questions that was asked in the Gen 17 survey was which of the following terms best describes your current financial circumstances? So 44% said living reasonably comfortably. The following terms best describes your current financial circumstances. So 44% said living reasonably comfortably. 28% said living very comfortably. Okay, so that's you know, pretty much in accordance with what I just shared with you about what the census data tells us, there's a good proportion of Australian Jewish population that are earning above the wider Australian median income.
Speaker 2:So you'd expect that people would respond, you know, comfortably. But 16% of this cohort said they were just getting along financially. 2% said that they were nearly poor. 1% said that they were poor. So if you stack those numbers up together, 1% said they were poor. So if you stack those numbers up together, you get around one in five saying effectively that they are just getting along or worse. Then that figure, when that came out, it stunned a lot of people. It stunned a lot of Jewish community leaders and organizations because it presented to the Jewish community, I think for the first time, a more nuanced picture about how people were getting along financially speaking. You know, I think there's a lot of misconceptions, even within the Jewish community, about financial circumstances.
Speaker 2:And there are a lot of assumptions that, hey, we're a wealthy, prosperous community, and I think that is true to some degree. But it obfuscates the fact that there have been and continue to be, perhaps even in more numbers than ever before, parts of the community that are really struggling.
Speaker 1:Is financial wellbeing sensitive to different age groups?
Speaker 2:Yes. So Gen 17 discovered that maximum financial stress is being experienced by people in their late 40s. So among this age group, one in four 27% said that they are just getting along, or worse.
Speaker 1:Is that because their kids are in high school and so their Jewish school fees are increasing?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that's true to say. I mean, it's a point for whether you're Jewish or not, it's a pressure point for most people in their lives. When they're in their late 40s, when their kids are still at school, they've still got mortgages they're paying off. They may not have reached their peak earning capacity. You know they've got a lot of financial and social responsibilities and in some ways it's no surprise to see that result that's depressing.
Speaker 1:Okay, something to look forward to over the next 10 years.
Speaker 2:So I think that's a big number one in four Jewish people in their late 40s identifying with that, and it flies in the face of this idea of all you wealthy Jews out there. Another interesting question was about deprivation. So respondents were asked have you struggled to be able to afford basic necessities like food and medicine? And it was a small number of respondents but nevertheless one in 20 said in the last 12 months, because I've heard like rumours that that's the case, but I don't want to pigeonhole strictly orthodox Jews.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was more prevalent among the strictly orthodox part of the Jewish community. They were 14% most likely to say that they weren't able to afford basic necessities.
Speaker 1:Is that because of, like, larger families?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, larger families. Kosher meat is much more expensive. Kosher food supply is more expensive, harder to come by and, tammy, are you familiar with the term the Erov? Did I pronounce that right? The Erov, oh, okay thank you, it could be Erov. Did I pronounce that right? The?
Speaker 1:Erov. Oh okay, Thank you. It could be Erov. My high school Hebrew teacher will have to send in a voice memo to correct us. I mean, it's either a physical string or like a metaphorical kind of outline of an area where on Shabbat or festivals, holy days, you can walk around a neighborhood where you can carry things, whereas you wouldn't necessarily be able to otherwise. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Well, you're probably asking the wrong person about this. You know, if you are strictly observant and you are very religious, then you want to be living in accordance with where your community is and living within the boundaries of that metaphoric area. And if you look at the map of Sydney, where the A-Wolf is, it takes in some of Australia's most expensive real estate areas that are not at all affordable for those people that you know might be having to house large families. Might be, you know, even if they're on just you know, might be having to house large families, might be, you know, even if they're on just you know medium incomes, they would struggle yeah to live there.
Speaker 2:If you look at melbourne, the abel is is takes some suburbs that are perhaps a little bit more affordable, but not much more affordable yeah, and just to emphasize for our non-Jewish listeners why it's important for these communities to live in certain geographical areas.
Speaker 1:So they'd need to be in walking distance to a synagogue because on the Sabbath, on Shabbat and on the holy days they're not allowed to drive. And just on the theme theme of real estate, I spoke to my dad who grew up in Bondi. His migrant parents settled there and you know I'm always hearing my dad talk about when something sold in Bondi for this or something sold in Paddington for that, and he's like no one wanted to fucking live there back in the day. It was full of cockroaches.
Speaker 2:It still is, it's just close to the sewerage.
Speaker 1:It smelled like sewerage, and I think this is the case for a lot of Jewish communities around the world. I even hear it, you know, when I visit relatives in Istanbul, and you know that the Jewish community purchased homes in areas that no one wanted to live in and then it became gentrified and then they're now, you know, increased in value.
Speaker 2:Same thing happened in London and New York and really any city large city of Jewish domicile around the world and of course that feeds, you know, for anti-Semites.
Speaker 2:that just sort of feeds their prejudices and suspicions yeah but the reality is is they arrived as migrants, in a case of Australia, as soon as they could buy housing. They did. Those investments proved to be quite successful and they built on that success. But not everyone did, but those parts of the Jewish community that can't afford to buy a home in Sydney's eastern suburbs but want to live close to their community, to their places of worship, to the organisations and the people that they identify with.
Speaker 1:And the schools. They want to send their kids to those schools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a very different story, and so part of the story is to acknowledge the rich listeners and to acknowledge at a macro level the incomes that a proportion of the Jewish population enjoys. The other important thing is not to lose sight of the other part of the community that are priced out.
Speaker 1:So that Gen 17 survey was seven years ago, and then I've read a piece from 2019 when journalist and fellow marathon enthusiast, vic Aladeff, who was the chief executive of the New South Wales Board of Deputies at the time, he said that almost 20% of the Jewish community of Australia lives below the poverty line. So I mean, I'm assuming that the situation has only gotten worse because, you know, we're experiencing a cost of living crisis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm assuming so as well.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure when the next gen survey will be run, but it will be interesting to see whether there's been an increase. Certainly, in the last 12 to 18 months, jewish social service providers have experienced a surge in demand for their financial counselling services, for their food vouchers, for their subsidies, for their interest-free loans and assistance with medical expenses. So here in Melbourne, the Melbourne Jewish Charity Fund, which has been around for many decades and assists households who are experiencing financial hardship, with providing all the things I just mentioned a moment ago. Their ceo, yoni palook, told jewish independent that in the last 12 months has been a 23 increase in people seeking assistance with medical bills in general living expenses, a 26 increase in people seeing assistance with just general living expenses and a 10% increase in support for accommodation expenses. And last week the Jewish Independent published another story in which the Melbourne Jewish Charity Fund was quoted. They're on track this year to reach more than 3,000 people in the Jewish community in Melbourne, which out of a community of about 50,000, that's not an insignificant figure.
Speaker 1:Okay, so all of that information points to a more complex, nuanced picture of the Australian Jewish community, but I guess this data doesn't account for the people who aren't going to Jewish organisations for help, right Because of this sense of affluence. In the JCOM there's so much shame attached to financial struggle. I'm obviously not going to out anyone here, but I just I'm personally aware of plenty of Jewish people and families who are struggling to make ends meet.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you're right. Anyone who works in Jewish social services will tell you that's not even the extent of the demand. That, for reasons related to shame and related to the fact that we're talking about a small community where often everyone knows everyone, there is a great reluctance to seek out the support of an organisation like a Jewish Care in Victoria or Jewish Care in New South Wales that they would rather go to non-Jewish providers to seek support.
Speaker 2:So that's a thing, and something else that these Jewish social service organisations are mentioning, like the Melbourne Jewish Charity Fund, is that people are coming to them now that have never come to them before or have never sought assistance before. So what they're hearing is that people are really desperate right now with this cost of living crisis that we're experiencing and with housing the ongoing crisis around housing affordability so the situation now is getting quite dire, where people are just like I just can't take this anymore. I'm going to have to go out there to look for some sort of support.
Speaker 1:I can hear my mum saying but tell them why the majority of Jews are earning more. So I asked the internet why Jews overall in Australia earn above the medium wage. I found some responses both on Reddit and is it Quora, quora, q-u-o-r-a. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some of them are amusing and some of them are probo, as my friend Jess would say. Of them are prabo, as my friend Jess would say. One person wrote why? Because Jews have been bred and raised to be entrepreneurial for thousands of years. They were barred from owning land, from trade guilds, from professions. All they could do was to be money lenders and peddlers, ie merchants. Is that true?
Speaker 2:There's an element of truth in that.
Speaker 1:yes, he says, jewish tradition always emphasised the importance of the book, study and learning and getting a good education. So there was a bit of evolution whereby Jews ended up having a disproportionate number of their people good at business. So, yes, there is a focus on that. I've heard a lot the sentiment of Jews have been persecuted and they've had all their physical possessions taken from them. But the only thing that someone can't take from you is your education. But then this person goes on to write since Jews suffered so much in pogroms, slaughters of Jews at the hands of Muslims, christians, etc. They became somewhat immune to ordinary reactions to risk If taking on a risky investment didn't mean that you were going. I don't know about that one, but it's an interesting theory from Cora. And then Reddit had a few funny things to say as well. Firstly, someone said I heard it's because they don't allow competition within their own community. They have one butcher, one chemist, one barber and they all help each other's businesses out. Not sure if there is any truth to that, but it makes sense.
Speaker 2:Oh dear, I know that person really has no idea what they're talking about and what sits behind that. I think, whether consciously or not, is this idea that there is this great level of organisation and almost a great level of collusion that goes on with the Jewish community, when the reality is that, if you knew anything about the Australian Jewish communities, About our communication style.
Speaker 1:You just spend two minutes in our family WhatsApp chat trying to organise Mother's Day and you'll see that we are really bad.
Speaker 2:What's the old story? Like one Jew, two synagogues. Like this is not a community that necessarily can always find agreement and alignment on anything. Two Jews three opinions.
Speaker 1:Tony Neroney on Reddit says I think it's pretty much the same as most communities here in Melbourne, like the Greek community. It's just more visible because they're happy to display their cultural heritage. Tony says I deliver to all parts of the local area and I see Greek and Jewish people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. One thing both of these communities share is a strong sense of familial ties and large families.
Speaker 2:So that is probably the most reasonable response there. I feel like the internet is not necessarily the greatest place to go to for For your answers.
Speaker 2:When you listen to those people that are supporting other people in the Jewish community, you'll just pretty quickly see that Jewish people in Australia are not immune, just like the rest of the wider population, to housing affordability crisis, to the cost of living pressures, to the myriad of everyday challenges that everyone has to face.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about some special breed of people that have been given unique privileges and powers. We are talking about a community just like any other ethnic, religious community here in australia, with rich people, with poor people, with people that are struggling to get by and people that feel comfortable. Yes, the censor results and the rich list tell us that they might be earning more on average, but that doesn't tell the full story. So hopefully, in our conversation today, we've shed light on other parts of the Jewish community. We've dispelled some of those prejudiced ideas that have been bubbling under the surface for centuries and here in Australia probably, you know, for as long as Jewish people have been in this country but have really come up online since October 7. Hopefully, we'll feel a little less uncomfortable about how to respond to that kind of prejudice and ignorance.
Speaker 1:As Tony Neroni from Reddit states. I wouldn't say most of the Jewish community is wealthy. It's just easier to spot because it's not Anglo-Australian, so look.
Speaker 2:Tammy. Next episode, we're going to stay, I'm sorry to say, in this anti-Semitic conspiracy theory world and we're going to deal with one of the other elements in the post-October 7th discourse, and that's around not just money, but also around Jewish influence and Jewish power and the ways that that extends into public policy. Time for Jewish content recommendations. What have you got to share with your legion of listeners and followers?
Speaker 1:Okay, well, it's a kvetch that like leads into a recommendation. So a few listeners who are quite invested in this podcast and in the hosts have reached out to me and they've said that they've been trying to find this book called Australia and Israel a Diasporic Cultural and Political Relationship by Shahar and Dashiell Lawrence, and they've been having a bit of a kvetch because they've been looking online and they've said why? Why is it? Is it $143.81 on Amazon?
Speaker 2:It's my retirement plan. Tammy Sell those books like hotcakes and I'll never have to, but I'll finally be able to afford that beautiful home in Bondi.
Speaker 1:And why is it shipping from Germany, of all places?
Speaker 2:Well, it's an academic book and anyone who's published academic work knows that it's an academic book. And anyone who's published academic work knows that it's a odd world, the academic book publishing because someone's getting some money there, but it's certainly not the authors and editors. I should also say that it is accessible in your state library if you're in new south wales. New south wales state library same in vict. Not making life easier, am I? You know what? I will do this for our listeners. Anyone who wants to contact us at ashamed, at thejewishindependentcomau, I will gift the first five people who do this it's a giveaway the second book that I edited, which is called People of the Boot the Triumphs and Tragedy of Australian Jews in Sport.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm stepping this giveaway up a notch. Okay. The first listeners to email you and to repost a snippet from our podcast to their socials.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, you've got to. Let us know. In what way have you been spruiking the podcast?
Speaker 1:That's it for another week of A Shame to Admit, with Dash Lawrence and me, tammy Sussman.
Speaker 2:This is a TJI podcast Today's episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with music by Donovan James. Links to the TJI articles mentioned today are in the show notes and if you want to see some handsome pics of one, edward Lukowski, where do people go, tony?
Speaker 1:Follow the Jewish Independent on Instagram or Facebook. Special thanks to journalist Marina Kamenev for all her hard work, her digging around, and to God for creating Larry and Sergey, who developed Google, the very search engine I use to ask what should I thank God for today?
Speaker 2:If you like the podcast, leave us a positive review or just tell your friends about us. It helps more people hear about the show. You can have a quvel or a kvetch via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or by emailing ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau. As always, thanks for your support and see you next Tuesday. Bye, thank you.